Doctor Who: Test Runner

“They are waking up.”

“Already? I thought we would have more time.”

“It seems so.”

I heard voices ring out, piercing through the dullness of my mind. What was going on?

“Looks like they are a he after all… It looks like we got lucky with the body too…”

“Aw,,, I was really hoping that they would be a girl…”

What were they talking about? What was happening right now? Why was my mind so hazy? I could barely think…

“Take a look at the analisis, we really lucked out with this one.”

“Survivalist… worked as a civil engineer and technician… I think you are right, we really lucked out.”

“And check out the way he died, he took on four guys that tried to rob him and actually managed to kill them in the process… with one of their buddies' knives too. Impressive for a human from a unawakened world.”

I felt a flash of a memory at what I was pretty sure were a man's words, an alleyway, four guys, a bloody knife in my hand and a stab of pain in my chest…

“Oh, take a look at this… the world he was from knew of our universe… Incredible. I had heard of this before, but check it out…”

“That makes this quite a lot easier. We don't have to explain as much.”

Memories started flickering to life in my head, flashing by and waking up my mind as if I was sleeping, but that wasn't quite right… it was almost as if I was drugged before, but not quite… my mind felt as if some repressor was being released… My mind was becoming whole again, which was surprising. Why was that surprising?

“He looks almost aware again.”

My memory started coming back fully as the man said those words. My name was Kiliad Jones. That sounds about right anyway.

My life started running through my mind, almost as if I was watching a film through my own eyes. Five year old me playing a video game, ten year old me playing around with a TV that broke, fifteen year old me assembling a model of a bridge in school, twenty year old me earning my diploma, thirty year old me at work… Thirty year old me looking at a stone pendant in a hospital… no, I wont think about that…

I moved on through my memories, finding myself sitting by a campfire in the woods and eating a rabbit I caught, then in a river, a mountain. I was running from myself out in the forest, alone. My mind was not in the best state after what had happened, but slowly through those months I found a part of myself that I hadn't known before. The wild was… freeing. There was life all around in a way I had never known in the city. It was incredible.

Then I found myself back in a city again. I don't remember why, but I had the vague feeling of getting myself some more supplies, maybe a nice new hatchet. But then I found myself in a back alley, surrounded by four boys all with knives in their hands. I felt myself spring into action as a kid threw himself at me, with the look of murder on his face, punching and kicking like an animal until I found myself with the kid's knife. Then the rest were on me, and my body flew into action. I had taken quite a few combat classes during my time, and my time in the wild had only amplified my skills at fighting. Though I had never killed. But… They made me.

After a moment of short and brutal fighting, stabs and slashes from the knives and punches and kicks coming to an end as I stood in a pile of the collapsed thuggish boys, then I felt the final stabs of pain coming from one of the many wounds those boys gave me in the fight and everything went dark.

Death came for everyone, so I wasn't really panicked or angry or anything. Just… disappointed. My life was short. It felt almost pointless in the end.

But now… I opened my eyes.

I didn't know what to think. I felt myself dying, and it was unmistakable. There was no chance I could have survived. So… why could I open my eyes? Why did I still have eyes?

Thoughts of that type rushed through my mind while I looked up at a bright blue sky, with confusion so deep that I was sure I had never felt anything close to this before. Not even when I tried to find out why deleting that one item from a video game I was designing made the entire world change to red.

A dark figure moved and covered my view of the blue sky, and caused me to blink and turn my head to the figure in confusion.

“Welcome back.” I heard coming from the dark figure above my body, sounding like the man's voice that was talking to the woman before.

“Back? Back where?” I said in confusion, realizing that I was lying on the ground as I did and staggering to my feet while I asked and looking around with sharp and confused eyes.

I took in the sight around me with growing confusion. I was in a grassy forest clearing, with large boulders set in a circle around me and therefore around the center of the small clearing. But I wasn't alone, as there was a man and a woman standing on either side of me. The man was tall, and looked very muscular, with black hair and a black robe. The woman looked basically the exact opposite to the man however, as she had bright blond hair that was cut short and had a bright white shirt alongside a pair of blue jeans.

“Back to life, I suppose.” The man answered my question simply, deadpaning and making my head reel. “Back- Back to life?” I asked haltingly “Where am I?” I asked, concerned and a little bit scared at this point. Something was going on with these two people, and I did not like it.

“You are inside our realm, Kiliad Jones.” The woman answered with a bright smile, making me frown. “Realm?” I asked, questioningly and getting to the point of my confusion. “Ah, I see.” The dark man cut in then, looking like he was seeing something in front of his eyes that I could not see, “Your universe does not have any true knowledge of the gods, just myths, rumours and stories... That does make this a little difficult.” The frown on his face clearly showed his displeasure at that information.

‘Gods. Right. So, this is the afterlife then.’ I thought to myself with a sigh, before speaking up to the two people with me. “So you are deities then? And this is what, an afterlife?” I asked, cutting straight to the point. Honestly, I had hoped that there would be some sort of afterlife. Heaven, reincarnation, whatever. Death had not really scared me, and it definitely didn't scare me now that it was over with.

“Afterlife… Now that is an interesting concept.” The older black haired man mused for a second, “I suppose in a way, the answer would be yes. We are deities, and you are about to begin your next life. Your afterlife.”

I nodded at his answer, taking everything at face value. The younger woman spoke up next, making me turn my head to her. “But before we send you there, there are quite a few things that we need to talk about. This is important for both of us and we only have so much time, so you need to pay attention.” The goddess started off, looking rather like a school teacher as she did, “First things first, we need to bring you up to speed about how reality works and all that.” She said with a sigh, looking to the man in a clear attempt to pass off that particular explanation to him.

The man looked back at me with a nod, apparently fine with the role that he had been assigned by the other deity. “Reality is complicated, as you might expect, but I can simplify it for you. There are thousands of gods and goddesses across the omniverse, living inside their individual realms inside the god plaine. Divine energy is very important for deities, and you can imagine it being basically the currency and food of all gods and goddesses. We can't live without it.” The black guy started off his explanation with me nodding along.

“But, that power can only be gained in certain ways.” The god continued seriously, “Namely through a supply that is generated by a living soul inside a universe in the mortal plane with a link to our realms, producing and filtering devine energy by staying alive.” He told me, letting things click into place inside my mind instantly.

“So you reincarnate people into various universes to help you gather energy. I am getting iseki’d.” I say slowly, with a grin. I always liked that genre, and now two deities are saying it's real? Hell yes!

“Yes, that's about the gist of it.” The woman said quickly, before the man started speaking again. “Your universe has quite the amount of clever terms. I will have to remember those.” The god noted before continuing with his lecture, “So we will be sending you into another universe with your newly alive body, and you will have to survive inside that universe. But there are several other things that we have to discuss first. You will be granted a link to the two of us, in the form of a disciple quest system with a few changes for your situation, granted two in-world bonuses of your choice, and sent into a planet that we have created for you to live on between your quests throughout the universe.” The god explained, making me pause.

“Hang on, could you tell me about quests, the system, bonuses and the planet before you do that? Or the universe in general?” I asked quickly, making sure not to make the mistake of going in with only the absolute minimum of information. If videogames and life in general have taught me anything, it was that going in blind was a good way to mess something up, and potentially die. And that was something that both the deities and me wanted to avoid, going by their talk of energy.

“Yes, I was getting to that.” The older man said with a straight face, then he did a few quick motions through the air as if touching a screen while he talked. “A quest system is the most basic system there is, and it can be created with very little energy. The basics of this system is that you can communicate with us, be given various quests to do different things around the universe for us, and then be sent into the location of the quest to try to pass the quest and gain some rewards or fail and end up back on Fera, which is the name of the planet you will be surviving in between quests.”

As he finished his explanation of this new system, I suddenly felt a weird pressing sensation in my mind. It wasn't painful or even uncomfortable, just odd. Then a screen popped in front of my eyes.

‘I suppose that is how I gained access to this system?’ I thought to myself as I looked at the black rectangle that appeared in the air before me, with white words reading “User Killiad Jones recognized.” flashing on the screen before it vanished.

“And now you are connected to the system.” The god finished his swiping motions and looked back at me. “Now, if you call ‘Status’ you will be able to see the details of any active quest. That will be important when you get a quest.” He explains to me, which I nod to.

“Status.” I say to the air, and I watch as a black screen blinked into view in front of my face again.

Name: Killiad Jones

Race: White Human

Sex: Male

Age: 30

Active Quests: None.

‘Ok, well… it works I guess. Its not particularly useful apparently, but I guess it will be important later.’ I thought to myself before mentally dismissing the system screen, causing my view of the two deities and the forest clearing to be uncovered.

“Good.” The god said with a nod and a smile as he saw me do that before placing his arms behind his back and continuing with his lecture. “Now that you have a basic idea of what the system will be, let's discuss the universe that we are sending you too.” He said, moving on. “Your world already knows about this universe in the form of a TV show, probably from some sort of small multiversal encounter, and you liked the show quite a bit. That show was Doctor Who.” The god proclaimed, causing my eyes to widen with shock.

I was getting sent there!? Hell no!

The goddess who was standing just to my right at this point started to laugh, looking at me with amusement. “That was the exact look that he had when he took a look inside the universe for the first time.” She commented with a smile and bright eyes, glancing to the god.

“And I can't go anywhere else?” I asked hesitantly, thinking about my actual rather extensive knowledge on the Doctor Who universe, and suddenly realizing the amount of danger that everyone in that universe was in practically every day.

“I am afraid not.” The dark haired god said with a grave look, clearly not wanting that to be the case. ‘There is something deeper there.’ I realized, ‘He dont want me to go there either, but he doesn't have a choice.’

“It's not that bad.” The goddess protested looking at me with a smile, “We will be making sure that your quests are not too dangerous for you, and we will be following The Doctor throughout his timeline so you will have some forehand knowledge to work off of, and possibly a luck bonus during quests from the Universal Will if you don't interfere with the timeline too much.” She said with a bright smile, but causing me to blink in confusion.

“Universal Will? Is that like a consciousness of a universe, or like fate?” I asked hesitantly, unsure on if I should trust fiction in this case or not. I mean, that is sometimes the term that is used to describe basically the will of the universe which can be called destiny or fate, or the consciousness of the universe itself that guides events inside itself.

“Yes, it would be the consciousness of the universe. This particular Universal Will is a bit heavy handed on crafting events around The Doctor, it apparently took a big liking to him.” The black robed god said, explaining things with a frown. “You should be aware of the Universal Will in any case, but you need to be cautious around interfering with Canon. Universal Wills ensure that a Canon event happens anyway, but any attempt to change it even on accident will cause it to give out consequences that it deems fit. Your quest system notes the amount of interference, but it is important to know that there are consequences. Potentially deadly ones.” The older man told me with a grave look.

“Right.” I said with a nod, accepting the new information without hesitation.

“Now that we have cleared that up, we should move on to introducing you to the world you will be staying on between your quests.” He continued before he looked at the younger looking goddess with a nod and stepped back, letting her take the floor.

The woman smiled and started talking immediately, “Good. So, I made this planet, Fera, myself and I placed it inside the universe to act as a rest zone from your quests.” she told me with a smile and waving her hands in seemingly random motions, and causing a large ball of light to appear in the air, the colors shifting until I could see that she was showing me the planet.

It looked similar to earth honestly, not looking very special. The main difference was in the shapes of the continents, and the lack of any cities or lights coming from the planet.

“I based this planet off of a particular world that I gained the pattern to when I was younger, and I think that it will pose quite a challenge for you. It has a magical energy infuseing the planet for starters, influencing the world and changing the natural animals, plants and resources, and also acting as a source of power for monsters along with acting as a natural shield against almost any sort of scanning technology inside the universe. It also has no humans, so you don't have to worry about finding people in the world.” She started explaining with a manic smile as she looked out on the world as if it was her child.

‘Magic… it has magic…’ Was my only thought, as my mind went numb at the word.

“Oh, I forgot to mention that this energy will be completely harmless to you in its natural state and won't affect you at all.” She continued, making me frown. “Are you trying to say that I won't be able to do magic?” I asked, annoyed at the idea of the animals doing more magic than I could.

“Yes.” She told me bluntly, causing me to sigh while she started messing with the globe again, this time zooming into a view of a large island, forests and even a large volcano resting on it.

“This is where you will be sent to, when we send you in-universe.” She said, pointing out the cost line of a section of the island and then dispelling the hologram of light after I took a good look at the island.

The goddess stepped back after she dispelled the hologram, and she looked to the older looking god who spoke up as she did. “Now, all that is left is for you to be given your two bonuses and you will be sent into the universe.” He said to me with a vague smile and looked at me expectantly.

“Um… Is this a two wishes thing, or does the bonuses have some sort of restriction?” I asked hesitantly before asking for anything. “Of course there are limitations.” The woman said with an almost impatient tone, “You can ask for any simple item for a bonus, you can even ask for a very small power like an other-dimensional inventory, but that's basically it.” she explained quickly and causing my brain to kick in.

“Right, those sound like good options. I guess for my first bonus I would like my survival gear from my old life, and for my second bonus the inventory sounds great.” I said after a moment of thinking. Realistically I didn't have many options according to the goddess, so I just went with what I thought would be immediately useful in the survival situation that I was told Fera was going to be for me.

“Those are good choices.” The god confirmed with a nod, “The survival gear is no challenge, but let's talk about this inventory. I am afraid that we are going to have to put some limitations onto it.” The dark robed god told me, looking a bit disappointed.

“Right, that sounds fair.” I said evenly, looking at the god with expectation. Any inventory is better than no inventory I guess.

“A good solid limitation in this case should be limiting what can be stored. I believe that only allowing items that you created or quest rewards would do. Add on the normal limiter of having to be in contact with what you want stored, and I believe that should work nicely.” The man told me, thinking it over and leaving me slightly surprised.

“And that's it? No size or amount limit for the inventory?” I questioned, slightly confused. That is normally the deal in fantasy, you get an inventory the size of a closet or a few inventory slots. But he didn't mention that at all.

“No, I don't believe that will be necessary.” The black haired god smiled at me with a gleam in his eye, apparently approving of the lack of a size limit. “And I believe that it is time for you to get started in Fera.” He said suddenly, as if a countdown had started, “Remember to survive. You must survive. Always.” He announced with a grave look as the goddess beamed. “We will be watching!”